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Iraqi Kurds, battling Islamist threat, press Washington for arms

Missy Ryan

A member of the Kurdish security forces patrols the outskirts of Kirkuk. Photo: Reuters

Washington: The semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq is pressing the Obama administration for sophisticated weapons it says Kurdish fighters need to push back Islamist militants threatening their region, Kurdish and United States officials said.

A Kurdish official said the request was discussed during a Kurdish delegation's visit to Washington in early July, and US officials said Washington was considering ways to bolster the Kurdish defences.

The Kurds say US help is critical to enable the Peshmerga, the Kurds' paramilitary force, to repel fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaeda spin-off that seized a wide swath of Iraqi territory in the past few months.

Members of the Peshmerga on the outskirts of Kirkuk. Photo: Reuters

The requested military supplies include tanks, sniper equipment, armored personnel carriers, artillery and ammunition, and also body armour, helmets, fuel trucks and ambulances.

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Kurdish officials say the Peshmerga need the weapons to guard the borders of the rugged mountainous region and to protect hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees sheltering there after fleeing the Islamist rebels' onslaught.

US officials say they are considering ways to help the Kurds defend themselves, but direct provision of arms to the Kurdistan Regional Government, in the way Washington arms Iraq's central government in Baghdad, appears highly unlikely.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has clashed repeatedly with Kurdish leaders over budgets, land and oil. US weapons supplies could set a potentially troublesome precedent for circumventing an allied government to provide US arms to a regional force.

"We provided some direct assistance in the past to Kurdish security forces in co-ordination with the central government," a US State Department official said. "Given the threat that Iraq faces by [ISIL], the United States will continue to engage with Baghdad and Erbil [the Kurdish region's capital] to enhance cooperation on the security front and other issues."

The Obama administration, which sent hundreds of soldiers to Iraq last month to protect diplomats and to analyse Iraq's military capabilities, has said it is considering what military actions it might take against ISIL.

As part of its response, US soldiers set up a joint operations centre in Erbil, in part to assess the Peshmerga.

Kurdish officials say their weapons request, which they also discussed with members of Congress, was not unprecedented. They pointed to Taiwan, which buys weapons from the US but which China regards as a renegade province.

The US at times provides military assistance through non-military channels. A CIA program has given selected training and weaponry to rebel groups fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.